Robert Alan Zimmerman (1941-), a.k.a. music icon Bob Dylan, was born on this day in in Hibbing, Minnesota. With supreme instinct and genius, the singer-songwriter altered the course of popular music from the minute he started strumming his guitar in Greenwich Village in the 1960s.

"Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything," he once said.

One of Dylan's many gifts to Rock and Roll was intellectual credibility. With Dylan, lyrics became passionate tools of self-expression."A poem is a naked person," he said.

A visionary, he inspired others to open up and speak their minds about the things that mattered most to them. He looked at pressing social issues. He made the lyrics poetic. He create complex messages.